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Women and Weight Training

July 20, 2006 Send this Article to a FriendPrint This Article

Author: Certified HyperStrike Trainers

The belief that women shouldn’t lift too much weight is an old myth that is heading slowly toward extinction, but this myth still has a breath and a pulse. Some still believe that lifting weight will make women muscular and masculine.

But if you’re a woman and you think that weight training produces masculine, muscular bulk, then you do not need to fret. The matter of muscle hypertrophy is very complex and it should not be a deterrent to training with weights for any woman serious about getting healthy, slim and fit.

When a resistance (i.e. a weight) reaches a certain physiological threshold, it stimulates a certain amount of muscular growth. For example, in a formerly inactive person, dancing or running can stimulate muscular growth because these are weight-bearing activities. For a well-trained person, lifting a heavier weight might be the proper stimulus to elicit further muscular growth. These two examples represent a continuum of muscular growth, or muscular hypertrophy.

Let’s look at why weight training does not make the average woman big and bulky. First, the hormonal profile of the average woman is very different than that of the average man. Testosterone, one of the hormones linked to muscular growth, is about ten times lower in women.

Second, it takes the average man an entire year of hard training and diligent eating in order to gain a measly eight pounds of muscles; a woman with the same dedication will gain appreciably less due to her lower testosterone.

To even attain the biggest volume of muscles your genetics allows, you must consume a consistently high number of calories – not to mention you must live a life that is restricted to mostly supporting muscle mass increase, like sleeping eight hours a night, avoiding alcohol, and basically living a life devoid of many things social.

In other words, building muscles isn’t an easy task for just anyone, but for the average woman, it is even more difficult. Unless you use steroids like some of the individuals depicted in popular bodybuilding magazines, your hard work with resistance training will net you lean muscles that support fat loss, increased bone density, greater strength, and a host of other healthy things that you’ll enjoy for years to come.
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